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Thursday, January 12, 2012

Dark Days Challenge Week 7: Asian Fusion

This is one of those really good dinners when you don't exactly follow the recipe and you just sorta wing it, and it is surprisingly delicious. Probably better than if I would have actually followed the recipe.

Said recipe is from one of my favorite cookbooks, Simply In Season. Here's how I changed it up:

Bring some water to a boil in a big pot. Add broccoli florets and pasta. Boil until pasta floats to the top (about 3 minutes) and drain well. Add sesame oil to hot pasta. Add pasta to to wok with soy sauce mixture. Reheat until sauce thickens and serve immediately. Garnish with sesame seeds if you like.

I'm making this again. Very soon. I wondered how it would be with steamed rice. But then it wouldn't be Asian fusion, I guess...

This was my Dark Days offering for the week. The main components of the dish: pasta, venison, and broccoli were all SOLE, in addition to sugar and garlic in the sauce.

I usually keep a few batches of frozen pasta dough on hand, but I was out, so I made this pasta tonight. It's much easier to work with when its frozen, actually. I think the freezing process must dry it out a bit, because when it's really fresh like tonight it tears to easily when you're rolling it out, and it's very delicate. I used flour from Reeds Mill Flours and eggs from Cozy Hollow Farm, both in Monroe County, WV. The color of the pasta was absolutely beautiful using some of those super-yellow yolks from pasture-raised chickens.

The venison was the last package from the ones Jeremy killed in 2010, so we really needed to eat it sooner rather than later. The garlic is some of what my mom grew last summer. The broccoli wasn't local, but it was organic. I haven't been able to get any local broccoli. The sugar was organic Florida Crystals Pure Cane sugar.

I am always on the lookout for recipes that call for venison. While you can substitute it for beef in most recipes, the taste is slightly different than conventional beef. Although, I am noticing the taste of venison less and less, though, as we mostly eat grass-fed beef now. There are several recipes in Simply In Season that call for venison specifically. I especially love the recipe for venison meatballs in that cookbook, which I have a link to on the recipe index on this blog. Venison is so lean and high in iron and other essential nutrients, so I love to cook with it. That, and it's generally free for us in a sense, because Jeremy is a hunter. This was a really healthy dinner, according to my LoseIt! app, at 504 calories per serving.